Article processing method, terminal, system and lpwan gateway

ABSTRACT

A control unit of the article processing terminal controls a radio frequency identification (RFID) reader of the article processing terminal to periodically scan a plurality of short-range articles. In response to a status change of an article of the plurality of short-range articles, the control unit receives an article identifier of the article from the RFID reader. The control unit controls a low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) module of the article processing terminal to send an article change message to a LPWAN gateway, where the article change message includes the article identifier and an address of an application server, and where the LPWAN gateway instructs, based on the article change message and the address, the application server to perform a next processing step on the article identified by the article identifier.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of PCT Application No.PCT/CN2018/110758, filed on Oct. 18, 2018, which claims priority toChinese Patent Application No. 201711278630.5, filed on Dec. 6, 2017,and each application is hereby incorporated by reference in itsentirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

Implementations of the present specification relate to the field ofcomputer technology, and in particular, to an article processing method,a terminal, a system, and an LPWAN gateway.

BACKGROUND

In conventional technologies, long-range processing is usually performedon articles, for example, by using a radio frequency identification(RFID) technology. Therefore, a solution for implementing short-rangeprocessing on the articles is needed.

SUMMARY

Implementations of the present specification describe an articleprocessing method, a terminal, a system, and an LPWAN gateway, toperform short-range processing on articles, thereby improving accuracyof article processing.

According to a first aspect, an article processing method is provided,including: controlling, by the control unit, an RFID reader toperiodically scan a plurality of short-range articles; when any one ofthe plurality of short-range articles changes, receiving, by the controlunit, an article identifier of the article sent by the RFID reader; andcontrolling, by the control unit, the LPWAN module to send an articlechange message to the LPWAN gateway, where the article change messageincludes the article identifier and an address of an application server;and the article change message is used to instruct the LPWAN gateway toinstruct, based on the address, the application server to perform a nextprocessing step on the article identified by the article identifier.

According to a second aspect, an article processing method is provided,including: receiving, by an LPWAN gateway, an article change messagesent by an article processing terminal, where the article change messageincludes an article identifier of a changed article and an address of anapplication server; and the article identifier is read by the articleprocessing terminal by using an RFID reader; and sending, by the LPWANgateway, an article change notification to the application server basedon the address, where the article change notification includes thearticle identifier; and the article change notification is used toinstruct the application server to perform a next processing step on thearticle identified by the article identifier.

According to a third aspect, an article processing terminal is provided,including: a control unit, configured to periodically send a scanninginstruction to an RFID reader; and an RFID reader, configured toperiodically scan a plurality of short-range articles based on thescanning instruction; and when any one of the plurality of short-rangearticles changes, send an article identifier of the article to thecontrol unit, where the control unit is further configured to: receivethe article identifier; and send a sending instruction to an LPWANmodule; and the LPWAN module, configured to send an article changemessage to an LPWAN gateway based on the sending instruction, where thearticle change message includes the article identifier and an address ofan application server; and the article change message is used toinstruct the LPWAN gateway to instruct, based on the address, theapplication server to perform a next processing step on the articleidentified by the article identifier.

According to a fourth aspect, an LPWAN gateway is provided, including: areceiving unit, configured to receive an article change message sent byan article processing terminal, where the article change messageincludes an article identifier of a changed article and an address of anapplication server; and the article identifier is read by the articleprocessing terminal by using an RFID reader; and a sending unit,configured to send an article change notification to the applicationserver based on the address, where the article change notificationincludes the article identifier; and the article change notification isused to instruct the application server to perform a next processingstep on the article identified by the article identifier.

According to a fifth aspect, an article processing system is provided,including: an article processing terminal, configured to periodicallyscan a plurality of short-range articles, and send an article identifierof a changed article to an LPWAN gateway; the LPWAN gateway, configuredto: receive the article identifier of the changed article; and send thearticle identifier to an application server; the application server,configured to: receive the article identifier to perform a nextprocessing step on the article identified by the article identifier, andobtain attribute information of the article based on the articleidentifier; and send the attribute information to a multimedia display;and the multimedia display, configured to receive the attributeinformation and display the attribute information.

According to the article processing method, terminal, system and LPWANgateway provided in implementations of the present specification, acontrol unit controls the RFID reader to periodically scan a pluralityof short-range articles. When any one of the plurality of short-rangearticles changes, the RFID reader obtains an article identifier of thearticle and sends the article identifier to a control unit. Afterreceiving the article identifier, the control unit controls an LPWANmodule to send an article change message to the LPWAN gateway. The LPWANgateway instructs, based on the received article change message, anapplication server to perform a next processing step on the article.Therefore, short-range processing is performed on articles, and theaccuracy of article processing is improved.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

To describe technical solutions of implementations of the presentspecification more clearly, the following briefly introduces theaccompanying drawings required for describing the implementations.Apparently, the accompanying drawings in the following description aremerely some implementations of the present specification, and for thoseskilled in the art, other drawings can be obtained according to thesedrawings without creative labor.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an article processing terminalaccording to an implementation of the present specification;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of an article processing system accordingto an implementation of the present specification;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of an article processing method according to animplementation of the present specification;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of an article processing method according toanother implementation of the present specification; and

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of an LPWAN gateway according to animplementation of the present specification.

DESCRIPTION OF IMPLEMENTATIONS

Solutions provided in the present specification are described below withreferent to accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an article processing terminal 10according to an implementation of the present specification. In FIG. 1,article processing terminal 10 includes radio frequency identification(RFID) reader 101, control unit 102, and low-power wide-area network(LPWAN) module 103. RFID reader 101 may communicate with control unit102 by using a general purpose input/output (GPIO) interface, auniversal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART) interface, or anEthernet interface. Control unit 102 may communicate with LPWAN module103 by using the GPIO interface or the serial port.

In FIG. 1, RFID reader 101 may be a near field communication (NFC)reader or an ultra-high frequency (UHF) RFID reader. Control unit 102may be a microcontroller unit (MCU). LPWAN module 103 may be a Loramodule or a cellular-based narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IOT).Control unit 102 may control RFID reader 101 to periodically (forexample, 300 ms) scan a plurality of short-range (for example, within 10cm) articles to detect whether any article has changed (for example,picked up or put down). When detecting that an article has changed, RFIDreader 101 may send an article identifier of the article to control unit102. Control unit 102 may read attribute information (for example,origin and composition) of the article based on the article identifier.Control unit 102 may then control LPWAN module 103 to send the articleidentifier, attribute information, and/or change status information) ofthe article to the LPWAN gateway. The change status information of thearticle may be, for example, being picked up from a position or beingput down at a position.

It is worthwhile to note that a process in which RFID reader 101 scans aplurality of short-range articles is a process in which RFID reader 101recognizes electronic tags on the articles by using an RFID antenna (forexample, a printed circuit board (PCB) near-field antenna). It can beunderstood that when RFID reader 101 is a UHF RFID reader, it canconnect a plurality of RFID antennas. Because the above identificationprocess belongs to a conventional technology, details are omitted here.

It is also worthwhile to note that when the recognized article is acommodity on a shelf, article processing terminal 10 may be directlyembedded on the shelf. Therefore, the problem of high falseidentification rate caused by light, occlusion and the like when objectsare recognized at a long-range is solved.

Certainly, in practice, the article processing terminal may also includeother modules, for example, a battery, and details are omitted in thepresent application.

The article processing system shown in FIG. 2 may be constituted byarticle processing terminal 10 shown in FIG. 1, LPWAN gateway 20,application server 30, and multimedia display 40. The article processingsystem is configured for processing (for example, tracking) thecommodity. In FIG. 2, article processing terminal 10 may be embedded andinstalled on the shelf to accurately identify a plurality of short-rangearticles. LPWAN gateway 20 can be connected to tens of thousands ofnodes (for example, article processing terminals), and has highscalability and flexibility. Application server 30 may be a cloudserver. Multimedia display 40 may include an android smart television(TV) and an apple TV, which can display attribute information (forexample, origin and composition) to a user. It is also worthwhile tonote that article processing terminal 10 is connected to LPWAN gateway20 through the LPWAN, where the distance between the two is usually notmore than two kilometers. LPWAN gateway 20, application server 30, andmultimedia display 40 are connected through the Internet.

When recognizing that an article on the shelf has changed (for example,an article is picked up), article processing terminal 10 may send anarticle change message to LPWAN gateway 20. After receiving the articlechange message, LPWAN gateway 20 may instruct application server 30 toperform corresponding processing (for example, tracking) on the article,for example, recording change status information of the changed article(for example, recording that an article is picked up at a location).After recording the change status information, application server 30 maysend attribute information of the commodity to multimedia display 40.Multimedia display 40 displays the attribute information of thecommodity to the user, so that the user can better understand thecommodity.

In FIG. 2, application server 30 may also analyze and manage therecorded change status information after a period of time. That is, thearticle processing terminal provided in the implementation of thepresent specification has a function of data analysis and management.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of an article processing method according to animplementation of the present specification. The method may be performedby a device having a processing capability: a server, a system or anapparatus, for example, the article processing terminal 10 in FIG. 1 orFIG. 2. As shown in FIG. 3, the method may include the following steps:

Step 310: Control unit 102 controls RFID reader 101 to periodically scana plurality of short-range articles.

The short-range articles may refer to articles within 10 cm. Theplurality of short-range articles have corresponding electronic tags.

Control unit 102 may periodically (for example, 300 ms) send a scanninginstruction to the RFID reader 101 by using a GPIO/UART/Ethernetinterface. After receiving the scan instruction, RFID reader 101 canrecognize the plurality of short-range articles by using an RFIDantenna. In a specific example, article processing terminal 10 canpre-store an article list, which includes article identifiers of allarticles. While recognizing the articles through the RFID antenna, RFIDreader 101 obtains the article identifier of each article. RFID reader101 can compare the obtained article identifier with the articleidentifier in the article list to determine whether there is a change inthe article and the article identifier of the changed article. Forexample, when an article identifier, which is recorded in the articlelist, is not currently obtained, the article identifier is the articleidentifier of the lost article.

In an example in which the commodity on the shelf is scanned by thearticle processing terminal, when the commodity is 30 cm away from theoriginal position, RFID reader 101 cannot recognize the commodity, thatis, cannot obtain the commodity identifier of the commodity.

Step 320: When any one of the plurality of short-range articles changes,control unit 102 receives an article identifier of the article sent byRFID reader 101.

As described in the previous example, after determining that the articlehas changed and determining the article identifier of the changedarticle, RFID reader 101 may send the article identifier to control unit102. After receiving the article identifier, control unit 102 may readthe attribute information of the article from the RFID reader 101 basedon the article identifier. It can be understood that the attributeinformation is obtained by RFID reader 101 during the process ofrecognizing the articles by using the RFID antenna.

Step 330: Control unit 102 controls LPWAN module 103 to send the articlechange message to the LPWAN gateway.

Control unit 102 may communicate with LPWAN module 103 by using the GPIOinterface or the serial port. After receiving the sending instruction,LPWAN module 103 sends an article change message to LPWAN gateway 20through the LPWAN. It can be understood that the article change messagemay include protocol data (for example, Lora protocol data), an articleidentifier of a changed article (or an article identifier, attributeinformation, and/or change status information), an identifier of anarticle processing terminal, an address of application server 30, andthe like.

After receiving the article change message, LPWAN gateway 20 canseparate protocol data from the article change message. Then, based onthe address of application server 30, the article identifier (or anarticle identifier, attribute information, and/or change statusinformation) of a changed article and the identifier of the articleprocessing terminal are sent to application server 30. Thus, applicationserver 30 performs corresponding processing, for example, recording thechange status information of the article. For example, when applicationserver 30 receives the change state information of the lost article, andthe change state information is: picked up from a shelf I of store A,application server 30 will record that: the x x article is picked upfrom the shelf I of store A. After the change status information isrecorded, if the attribute information is received, the attributeinformation of the article can be sent to multimedia display 40 so thatthe user can better understand the commodity.

It is worthwhile to note that, for communication security, LPWAN gateway20 usually encrypts a message when sending the message to applicationserver 30. Application server 30 decrypts the encrypted message firstand then processes it accordingly (for example, tracking).

It is also worthwhile to note that application server 30 in the previousimplementation of the present specification may analyze the change stateinformation related to an article after a period of time (for example, aday) and feed back an analysis result to a manufacturer. For example, ifa dress is picked up many times in a day, but eventually it is put down,an obtained analysis result may be that: the dress may look good, but itis uncomfortable to wear. That is, application server 30 can collect thetrend data of the commodity, thus greatly promoting the fine dataoperation of the retail industry.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of an article processing method according toanother implementation of the present specification. The method may beperformed by LPWAN gateway 102 in FIG. 2. As shown in FIG. 4, the methodmay include the following steps:

Step 410: An LPWAN gateway receives an article change message sent by anarticle processing terminal.

Article processing terminal 10 scans by using RFID reader 101 for changein the article. If an article changes, a change message is sent to LPWANgateway 20. The article change message may include the articleidentifier of the changed article and the address of application server30.

Step 420: The LPWAN gateway sends an article change notification to theapplication server based on the address.

The article change notification includes the article identifier. Afterreceiving the article change notification, application server 30performs a next processing step on the article identified by the articleidentifier, for example, recording the change status information of thearticle.

An LPWAN gateway is also provided in an implementation of the presentspecification. As shown in FIG. 5, the gateway includes: receiving unit501 and sending unit 502.

The receiving unit 501 is configured to receive an article changemessage sent by an article processing terminal, where the article changemessage includes an article identifier of a changed article and anaddress of an application server. The article identifier is read by thearticle processing terminal by using the RFID reader.

The sending unit 502 is configured to send an article changenotification to the application server based on the address, where thearticle change notification includes an article identifier. The articlechange notification is used to instruct the application server toperform a next processing step on the article identified by the articleidentifier.

The functions of the functional modules of the apparatus in the previousimplementations of the present specification may be implemented byperforming the steps of the previous method implementations. Therefore,details of a specific operation process of the apparatus provided in oneimplementation of the present specification are omitted here.

The LPWAN gateway provided in an implementation of the presentspecification may receive the article change message sent by the articleprocessing terminal and send the article change message to theapplication server. Thus, the short-range processing on the article isrealized.

Those skilled in the art should recognize that in one or more of theprevious examples, the functions described in the present specificationmay be implemented in hardware, software, firmware, or any combinationthereof. When being implemented using software, these functions can bestored in a computer-readable medium or transmitted as one or moreinstructions or codes on the computer-readable medium.

The purpose, technical solutions and beneficial effects of the presentspecification are further described in detail in the specificimplementation described above. It should be understood that the abovedescription is merely a specific implementation of the presentspecification and is not intended to limit the protection scope of thepresent specification. Any modification, equivalent replacement andimprovement made on the basis of the technical solutions of the presentspecification should be included in the protection scope of the presentspecification.

What is claimed is:
 1. An article processing method performed by anarticle processing terminal, comprising: controlling, by a control unitof the article processing terminal, a radio frequency identification(RFID) reader of the article processing terminal to periodically scan aplurality of short-range articles; in response to a status change of anarticle of the plurality of short-range articles, receiving, by thecontrol unit, an article identifier of the article from the RFID reader;and controlling, by the control unit, a low-power wide-area network(LPWAN) module of the article processing terminal to send an articlechange message to a LPWAN gateway, wherein the article change messagecomprises the article identifier and an address of an applicationserver, and wherein the LPWAN gateway instructs, based on the articlechange message and the address, the application server to perform a nextprocessing step on the article identified by the article identifier. 2.The method according to claim 1, wherein the RFID reader is a near fieldcommunication (NFC) reader or an ultra-high frequency (UHF) RFID reader.3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the LPWAN module is a LongRange (LoRa) module or a cellular-based narrowband Internet of Things(NB-IOT).
 4. The method according to claim 1, wherein controlling theRFID reader of the article processing terminal to periodically scan theplurality of short-range articles comprises: controlling, by the controlunit and by using a general purpose input/output (GPIO) interface, auniversal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART) interface, or anEthernet interface, an RFID reader to periodically scan a plurality ofshort-range articles.
 5. The method according to claim 1, whereincontrolling the LPWAN module of the article processing terminal to sendthe article change message to the LPWAN gateway comprises: controlling,by the control unit and by using a general purpose input/output (GPIO)interface, the LPWAN module to send the article change message to theLPWAN gateway.
 6. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:obtaining, by the article processing terminal and by scanning theplurality of short-range articles, a plurality of article identifierscorresponding to the plurality of short-range articles; and determining,by the article processing terminal, the status change of the article,based on comparing the plurality of article identifiers with anadditional plurality of article identifiers stored in the articleprocessing terminal.
 7. The method according to claim 6, whereindetermining the status change of the article further comprises:determining, by the article processing terminal, that the additionalplurality of article identifiers do not comprise the article identifierof the article; and determining, by the article processing terminal,that the article has been picked up.
 8. A non-transitory,computer-readable medium storing one or more instructions executable bya computer system to perform operations comprising: controlling, by acontrol unit of an article processing terminal, a radio frequencyidentification (RFID) reader of the article processing terminal toperiodically scan a plurality of short-range articles; in response to astatus change of an article of the plurality of short-range articles,receiving, by the control unit, an article identifier of the articlefrom the RFID reader; and controlling, by the control unit, a low-powerwide-area network (LPWAN) module of the article processing terminal tosend an article change message to a LPWAN gateway, wherein the articlechange message comprises the article identifier and an address of anapplication server, and wherein the LPWAN gateway instructs, based onthe article change message and the address, the application server toperform a next processing step on the article identified by the articleidentifier.
 9. The non-transitory, computer-readable medium according toclaim 8, wherein the RFID reader is a near field communication (NFC)reader or an ultra-high frequency (UHF) RFID reader.
 10. Thenon-transitory, computer-readable medium according to claim 8, whereinthe LPWAN module is a Long Range (LoRa) module or a cellular-basednarrowband Internet of Things (NB-IOT).
 11. The non-transitory,computer-readable medium according to claim 8, wherein controlling theRFID reader of the article processing terminal to periodically scan theplurality of short-range articles comprises: controlling, by the controlunit and by using a general purpose input/output (GPIO) interface, auniversal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART) interface, or anEthernet interface, an RFID reader to periodically scan a plurality ofshort-range articles.
 12. The non-transitory, computer-readable mediumaccording to claim 8, wherein controlling the LPWAN module of thearticle processing terminal to send the article change message to theLPWAN gateway comprises: controlling, by the control unit and by using ageneral purpose input/output (GPIO) interface, the LPWAN module to sendthe article change message to the LPWAN gateway.
 13. The non-transitory,computer-readable medium according to claim 8, further comprising:obtaining, by the article processing terminal and by scanning theplurality of short-range articles, a plurality of article identifierscorresponding to the plurality of short-range articles; and determining,by the article processing terminal, the status change of the article,based on comparing the plurality of article identifiers with anadditional plurality of article identifiers stored in the articleprocessing terminal.
 14. The non-transitory, computer-readable mediumaccording to claim 13, wherein determining the status change of thearticle further comprises: determining, by the article processingterminal, that the additional plurality of article identifiers do notcomprise the article identifier of the article; and determining, by thearticle processing terminal, that the article has been picked up.
 15. Acomputer-implemented system, comprising: one or more computers; and oneor more computer memory devices interoperably coupled with the one ormore computers and having tangible, non-transitory, machine-readablemedia storing one or more instructions that, when executed by the one ormore computers, perform one or more operations comprising: controlling,by a control unit of an article processing terminal, a radio frequencyidentification (RFID) reader of the article processing terminal toperiodically scan a plurality of short-range articles; in response to astatus change of an article of the plurality of short-range articles,receiving, by the control unit, an article identifier of the articlefrom the RFID reader; and controlling, by the control unit, a low-powerwide-area network (LPWAN) module of the article processing terminal tosend an article change message to a LPWAN gateway, wherein the articlechange message comprises the article identifier and an address of anapplication server, and wherein the LPWAN gateway instructs, based onthe article change message and the address, the application server toperform a next processing step on the article identified by the articleidentifier.
 16. The computer-implemented system according to claim 15,wherein the RFID reader is a near field communication (NFC) reader or anultra-high frequency (UHF) RFID reader.
 17. The computer-implementedsystem according to claim 15, wherein the LPWAN module is a Long Range(LoRa) module or a cellular-based narrowband Internet of Things(NB-IOT).
 18. The computer-implemented system according to claim 15,wherein controlling the RFID reader of the article processing terminalto periodically scan the plurality of short-range articles comprises:controlling, by the control unit and by using a general purposeinput/output (GPIO) interface, a universal asynchronousreceiver/transmitter (UART) interface, or an Ethernet interface, an RFIDreader to periodically scan a plurality of short-range articles.
 19. Thecomputer-implemented system according to claim 15, wherein controllingthe LPWAN module of the article processing terminal to send the articlechange message to the LPWAN gateway comprises: controlling, by thecontrol unit and by using a general purpose input/output (GPIO)interface, the LPWAN module to send the article change message to theLPWAN gateway.
 20. The computer-implemented system according to claim15, further comprising: obtaining, by the article processing terminaland by scanning the plurality of short-range articles, a plurality ofarticle identifiers corresponding to the plurality of short-rangearticles; and determining, by the article processing terminal, thestatus change of the article, based on comparing the plurality ofarticle identifiers with an additional plurality of article identifiersstored in the article processing terminal.